Broken C: drive move OS help!

[GlaZe08]

Hello! 

I’m not very experienced with computers so i was hoping i could get some help here.

So my SATA connector or whatever you call it on my C: drive is kinda broken. So sometimes it gets loose and causes my pc to shutdown. I’ve been taping it to keep it from getting loose but i think the pins gave up and i cant get it to boot anymore.

 

Now, i dont have too much important stuff on my C: drive almost all of my stuff is located on the D: drive. So my question is if its possible to install windows on my D: drive without deleting all programs and files on it. 

And is it possible to change my current D: drive to my C: drive and just throw away the broken drive.

 

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

7 minutes ago, GlaZe08 said:

Now, i dont have too much important stuff on my drive almost all of my stuff is located on the drive. So my question is if its possible to install windows on my drive without deleting all programs and files on it. 

And is it possible to change my current drive to my drive and just throw away the broken drive.

Windows will always reformat the partition it installs to. So to get around this, shrink the partition of where your data is to however much you want to give to Windows. You can try using Windows' Disk Management tool, but it doesn't move files around. So if a file is in position say 990GB out of 1000GB, then you can only shrink the partition by 10GB. There are other tools like Partition Magic that can get around this. Once you've shrunk the partition, don't create a new one, as the Windows install process also needs to create a bootloader partition* as well and the installer will magically set everything up.

 

* Before installing Windows on the good drive, unplug the iffy drive. Otherwise it'll see there's a bootloader on the iffy drive and may write to it rather than create a bootloader on the storage drive you want to install Windows on.

 

EDIT: The forum likes to auto-emoji

[suchamoneypit]

You can probably still get the drive working unless you've actually snapped off the gold "fingers". All thats required for data to flow is a electrical connection. I messed up my drive pretty good here and I was able to sandwich all the broken pieces together, and then hot glue it. I made that post December 2015, and I still use that HDD to this day.

[GlaZe08]

4 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Windows will always reformat the partition it installs to. So to get around this, shrink the partition of where your data is to however much you want to give to Windows. You can try using Windows' Disk Management tool, but it doesn't move files around. So if a file is in position say 990GB out of 1000GB, then you can only shrink the partition by 10GB. There are other tools like Partition Magic that can get around this. Once you've shrunk the partition, don't create a new one, as the Windows install process also needs to create a bootloader partition* as well and the installer will magically set everything up.

 

* Before installing Windows on the good drive, unplug the iffy drive. Otherwise it'll see there's a bootloader on the iffy drive and may write to it rather than create a bootloader on the storage drive you want to install Windows on.

 

EDIT: The forum likes to auto-emoji

I’m not exactly sure how to do all that. But i asdume i need my pc to be booted into windows for it, and thats not possible right now

[GlaZe08]

3 minutes ago, suchamoneypit said:

You can probably still get the drive working unless you've actually snapped off the gold "fingers". All thats required for data to flow is a electrical connection. I messed up my drive pretty good here and I was able to sandwich all the broken pieces together, and then hot glue it. I made that post December 2015, and I still use that HDD to this day.

The gold fingers arent snapped off, but i saw that some were slightly bent. Unfortunately i dont have the plastic parts to glue back together

[Eastman51]

3 minutes ago, GlaZe08 said:

I’m not exactly sure how to do all that. But i asdume i need my pc to be booted into windows for it, and thats not possible right now

Parted magic is a bootable mini-Linux distro with all kinds of data/storage management tools, you don't need Windows to use this tool, just a flash drive to install it on.

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 minute ago, GlaZe08 said:

I’m not exactly sure how to do all that. But i asdume i need my pc to be booted into windows for it, and thats not possible right now

If don't have another computer you can use to work on the drive, then the only other option I can think of is making a live Linux on a USB stick with space leftover to install apps to muck around with the partition on the D:\ storage drive..

[GlaZe08]

4 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

If don't have another computer you can use to work on the drive, then the only other option I can think of is making a live Linux on a USB stick with space leftover to install apps to muck around with the partition on the D:\ storage drive..

I have a older HDD laying around, would it be possible to install windows on that instead, and keep my D drive as it is?

[Mira Yurizaki]

4 minutes ago, GlaZe08 said:

I have a older HDD laying around, would it be possible to install windows on that instead, and keep my D drive as it is?

Yes, that would work better.

[GlaZe08]

2 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Yes, that would work better.

I think that HDD still has windows 7 installed.  And I currently dont have a win 10 key or disc. Would it safer to unplug my working D drive and then try to get win 10 on the older drive? Because i really dont wanna lose all the files on that drive.. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

2 minutes ago, GlaZe08 said:

I think that HDD still has windows 7 installed.  And I currently dont have a win 10 key or disc. Would it safer to unplug my working D drive and then try to get win 10 on the older drive? Because i really dont wanna lose all the files on that drive.. 

You don't have to, but it's a good idea if you don't want to accidentally delete the D drive.

[GlaZe08]

2 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

You don't have to, but it's a good idea if you don't want to accidentally delete the D drive.

Is windows 10 still free to install if i have win 7 on that old drive? 

[Mira Yurizaki]

3 minutes ago, GlaZe08 said:

Is windows 10 still free to install if i have win 7 on that old drive? 

I don't think so. You can still try and see if it works. Otherwise you can use the key from the previous Windows 10 (I'm assuming it's Windows 10)

[GlaZe08]

1 minute ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

I don't think so. You can still try and see if it works. Otherwise you can use the key from the previous Windows 10 (I'm assuming it's Windows 10)

So, just to be clear, if i unplug both my drives, then plug in the older one with win 7 then my pc should boot right? If i then upgrade to win 10  and plug my D drive in, all my files should work right? I just need to install all drivers and stuff again that were on my C drive. I assume programs i have on the D drive will need a reinstall, all i really care about is all the hours of work in my game saves, and other projects

[Mira Yurizaki]

6 minutes ago, GlaZe08 said:

So, just to be clear, if i unplug both my drives, then plug in the older one with win 7 then my pc should boot right? If i then upgrade to win 10  and plug my D drive in, all my files should work right? I just need to install all drivers and stuff again that were on my C drive. I assume programs i have on the D drive will need a reinstall, all i really care about is all the hours of work in my game saves, and other projects

Yes, it should all work.

 

Although user generated data like game saves and settings are usually somewhere in C:\Users, not where they are installed.

[GlaZe08]

10 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Yes, it should all work.

 

Although user generated data like game saves and settings are usually somewhere in C:\Users, not where they are installed.

I know that they are in the D drive, as i choose to save them there. I also edit alot of the files  and i go in the D drive to find them  

 

Anyways, thank you so much for answearing all my questions, i really appreciate it! I feel so much more confident about this now. Hopefully it works out.

[GlaZe08]

Update: The old harddrive worked but had very very slow writing speeds. or it was just dying, it was at 99-100% at only about 0.2MB/s Ended up getting a 120 GB SSD to keep windows on and use my other working drive as storage.  I learnt how to create a windows install thingy on a USB so i got windows working on the SSD working after a few tries. And after plugging the other harddrive back in i found all my stuff there still Working. Thanks everyone who helped out!